


What He Told Himself

by Galaxynite



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Blind Roy Mustang, Character Study, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Keeping Each Other Company, Post-Canon, Post-Promised Day, Riza's so tired and emotionally ruined, Roy has bad nightmares, They're both hurting, and major ptsd, and words just don't cut it, hospital royai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:13:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23763655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galaxynite/pseuds/Galaxynite
Summary: There was grief for almost losing her. For almost losing himself. For almost losing sight. But...those were almosts, and he’d never paid much mind to almosts.
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 5
Kudos: 56





	What He Told Himself

He was getting used to the dark.

That’s what he told himself.

The empty, inky blackness was haunting and unyielding, but that was nothing new to him, really. The void that had melted between his conscious and unconscious mind like silky red sand slipping through his fingers had always been there, from distant daydreams to thrashing midnights. He’d always slept in the company of hungry flames, and now he woke to the stabbing in his palms and the nothingness in his eyes. Merciful, peaceful sleep was rare - undeserved- but occasionally it would catch him as if he had been avoiding it. It would lull him off to a slumber that stayed as dark and sightless as his eyes, just to wake in a haze and for his breath to catch and for him to almost reach for his face in panic so much panic because it’s dark and he can’t see why can’t he _see_ \- before remembering with suffocating clarity that his darkness was permanent and bitter. 

If he was vulnerable to a bout of self pity, he’d allow himself the thought that he’d earned this result. The reanimations of his crimes had never left him, playing against the insides of his eyelids, eating and picking at his soul for years like vultures to a corpse. And not too long ago he’d had the small, _wrong_ luxury of escaping to the daylight- a minimal freedom from a mind that hated him.

He had earned a night that never ended, and where his nightmares had nowhere to go.

But he’d grit his teeth and remind himself that he’d been cursed for long enough that this was no new battle- just a new challenge.

He would gladly meet challenge with defiance and fire.

The only thing he’d ever known how to do.

So he’d fight the urge to let his lip twitch. He’d fight the urge to clench his fists tighter to the hospital sheets- that would irritate his injuries and _she_ would have his head for that. He’d sit himself up and his cold sweat would grow colder and he’d feel the breeze from the open window he’d so adamantly requested. He’d allow a small tilt in his lips, thinking of his squadron profusely apologizing on behalf of their demanding patient. He’d been nothing less than indignant over their accusations. 

But inevitably, he’d refused to be robbed of more senses than necessary and being confined to the hospital was going to drive him crazy one way or another, so he might as well have some sense of peace _feeling_ that the world was still turning. 

They’d left the window open.

He’d never been very good at imagining - envisioning was something wholly different- but he did his damnedest to think about how promising everything must look. Even in all the ruin - this ruin he’d never seen but could envision so vividly because who else was he but a beacon of such destruction - the breeze was fresh and warm.

Forgiving and new.

That’s what he told himself.

-

If she could sense the shifts between his sleepless wallowing or his rampant, itching ambition - which he suspected she did, precisely because of her silence - she’d left him to it. She was merciful, this once. He was left to mull and to think and to process and to allow himself the shock and the grief and the fear when no one else was looking. To allow himself to still pretend he could lead from where he sat in a hospital bed in the dark, holes in his hands and a loaded gun to his dreams.

He could have hidden the fact he couldn’t sleep and that when he did, it was restless, had he been alone. He could have hidden the twitching in his fingers to stop waiting- stop waiting for the healing that wouldn’t come. To hide the need in his heart to do the only thing left he was meant to do, no matter how many walls he had to run into to do it.

But even then, fooling her would have been difficult.

It always had been.

For the first few days, their interactions had been muted. There was so much to be said and yet nothing at all, and the nothing was so much more powerful that they remained passive, strangely content in their silence. His squadron was constantly coming and going, always somewhere delicately balanced between gentle conversations and professional updates, but always ruthlessly optimistic. They brought books to their colonel (because he refused to waste all this time not learning and _preparing_ ) and amenities to their lieutenant, and the patients had sworn secrecy to the overly long lunch breaks and the occasional accidental on-the-clock nap that made him proud and her scoff. 

She would exhale sharply in their solitude, scolding him that he’d finally succeeded in making them all lazy, and he’d smile languidly, trying to find her face in the nothing that was there instead. 

None of them mentioned his eyes past the initial shock. They didn’t see him any differently, even though nothing looked the same to him anymore.

They had all kept their promises. He was content with that.

-

Time began to heal the distance- the nothing between them. 

He sensed it before he knew it. He felt it when he laid staring at a ceiling that he knew must exist, despite his sense’s betrayal, and she sat beside him like she always had. He could sense her trying not to stare into eyes that weren’t his anymore.

It was harder to keep them closed, but he tried to spare her.

Her wounds were worse than his, he’d say on these nights, when he’d hear her move slowly across the room. She had never been fragile and she was far from broken, but she’d never allow herself the luxury of being idle, even now. 

And who was he, of all people, to tell her otherwise, no matter how much it killed him.

No matter how much she wouldn’t listen to him.

No matter how much he loved and hated and loved that about her.

What would the doctors say to find her out of bed, he’d continue, sitting up in the breeze that was cold and smelled of night and fog and bit across his skin. Despite his words, selfishly hoping the weight sitting at his side wouldn’t leave him in the abyss alone if he got too close. 

He needed her, were the words he wanted to say. 

‘ _Don’t leave me please_ ’ was what he meant.

But that was part of the nothing.

Her neck was raw, he could hear it, her voice still wrong and sharp in her throat, low and pained. Her hands were rough and sore when they brushed against his -- his tired, jaded hands that he could barely feel and hardly move.

Adrenaline had fueled his alchemy more than common sense in the end. Flames snuffed out the stabbing pain deep in his palms and seared away any reason that might have come to him. To snap had been to break himself further.

He regretted none of it.

Except perhaps missing.

She’d retort with a soft exhale- the type he recognized to come with her specific brand of aching smile. The sound ate his heart and burned in his chest and he wished he didn’t know that he certainly wasn’t looking at her. But he couldn’t stand to close his eyes now.

She’d tell him to stop worrying about her. He could never do such a thing.

Her hand would find his, innocent but intentional and he stumbled on whether to let it stay for fear of feeling her leave or reaching to hold it tighter and never letting go. 

She made the choice for him, the only woman who’d ever been able to read his mind, and laced fingers that were broken and filthy and bloodied together, as if it were a pact. Perhaps it was, so delicate and worn now, after all these years of damage.

She was far from broken. He wasn't sure he could say the same for himself. But she shook, and suddenly, holding her hand wasn’t nearly enough.

He would get used to it, he’d whisper, somewhere between her cheek and her hair, his arms tangled against her back that he had no right to touch and her head on his shoulder and her hands wound tightly in his hair as if she feared he’d be taken away again. 

He would adjust. He would be fine.

Blindness was hardly a death sentence.

Still, she wept for him - who was too proud and stubborn to do it for himself - and for them both and all that had been lost and shattered, despite all that had been gained. She cried of relief and agony and so many years of exhaustion and for a plan that had worked and had nearly cost them everything to win. She cried for his stupid optimism, blinder than it had ever been before. She grieved in full and he knew there was nothing he could do in the face of hurting her. Now or ever. There was no excuse.

He’d grieved for them too, by the time her breaths began to normalize and he could count her heartbeats as if they were his own - guilt riddled him, surely this was bad for her in this state. There was grief for almost losing her. For almost losing himself. For almost letting everything come undone at his fingertips all over again. 

For almost losing sight.

  
But...those were almosts, and he’d never paid much mind to almosts.

Soft tapping struck the windows, and he was certain it was raining.

But that was just what he told himself.

**Author's Note:**

> so I finished Brotherhood literally last night and stayed up all night to do it  
> I have a lot of very raw feelings about these two ;v;


End file.
